·   Sun (2013)

·  Political Mother: The Choreographer's Cut (2014)

·  Untouchable (2015), commissioned by The Royal Ballet^[7]

·   Orphee et Eurydice (2015), Royal Opera House Production

·    Barbarians (2015)

·   Disappearing Act (2015)

·  Clowns (2016), for Nederlands Dans Theater

· Fiddler on the Roof (2016), Broadway revival

Shechter's style is earthy and blunt, powered by action and raw energy. Soundtracks tend to be moody and tense. Very often the movement looks animalistic (predatory swoops, chimpanzee lopes, lizardy wrigglings) which gives the choreography a fierce dynamic. You can also sense Shechter's background in percussion, as the dancing is often propelled by ragged rhythms. He's also very good at creating a kind of controlled chaos: sometimes it looks as if the dancers are all over the place, but they can snap into formation in an instant.

Shechter often talks about degrees of individual freedom (or lack of it) and you can see that concern in his work. Dancers seem less like individuals and more like beings caught in the crosscurrents of their own animal drives versus the demands of the group. There's a lot of struggle in that dynamic. Although Shechter doesn't go for narratives, he sometimes likes to add his own voiceover, in which he muses on the nature of our existence. 

Works I like: 
* Shelters 
*The other seder 
*Uprising 
 

Repertoire Workshops
 These consist of a contemporary technique class, repertoire and a creative session exploring Vardimon’s unique approach to creating work. The company's repertoire includes: Maze, Freedom, 7734, Yesterday, Justitia, Park, Lullaby, Ticklish, Lure Lure Lure, Tête, Madame Made and Therapist.

Choreographic Workshops 
These focus on developing improvisation skills, contact work and creating original movement material from a given stimulus. The Company also offers workshops in the use of video technology with dance.  
 
Jasmin
Renowned for her uniquely theatrical choreographic and directorial style combining physical theatre, quirky characterisation, innovative technologies, text and dance, Vardimon accentuates her work with an acute observation of human behaviour. With sharp instincts and provocative daring, she has developed an individual choreographic voice, distinguished by her beautifully detailed movement, insightful humour and engaging drama. The company’s works are widely accessible through their exposure of human experience, social relevance, high quality, passion, skill and commitment.

Vardimon’s choreography is known for its mixture of physical theatre, technologies, text and dance

Focusing on Techniques, strategies and creative activities necessitated by each project, Worth and Vardimon address:

– The initial “triggers” which lead to research, expansion and performance;
 – The social, political and psychological content of Vardimon’s work;
 – The relationship between accessibility of content and complexity of ideas;
 – Drawing on texts to enhance and shape a piece of dance work;
 – The editing process, and its inherent messiness;
 – The contribution of a company’s different voices and viewpoints to the development of a production.

Based on extended conversation and interviews, this highly illustrated, full-colour volume is a unique reflection on Jasmin Vardimon’s vibrant, continually developing practice.

 

Following later studies in Contemporary Dance at De Montfort Universityand Performing Arts at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance and a period working with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Brussels based X-Group project, he began presenting solo performances of his work in the 1990s.

In August 2000, he launched Akram Khan Company. His first full-length work Kaash, a collaboration with Anish Kapoor and Nitin Sawhney, was performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 2002. 

Akran Khan is one of the most celebrated and respected dance artits today. In just over fifteen years he has created a body of woork that has contributed significantly to the arts in the UK and abroad. His reputation has been built on the success of imaginative, highly accessible and relevant productions such as DESH, iTMOi, Vertical Road, Gnosis and Zero Degrees. Khan is also an Associate Artist of Sadler’s Wells, London. 

Khan's dance roots are in kathak and it shows. It's a style characterised by mathematically complex rhythmic footwork, spins, fluid arm and hand gestures, as well as dynamic contrasts between speed and stillness. 

His background floods his contemporary work. Sometimes he uses moves directly from kathak, even where he doesn't, his style has a lot of rhythmic interest – the arms circle and slice around the head and torso, and bursts of action and sudden freezes. Khan has also often used speech and storytelling in his pieces. 

Kan is a compelling performer with a soloist's command of the stage. As with other distinctive soloists such as Wayne McGregor his earliest group compositions tended to look like refractions of his own presence. Later, he made a trilogy of duets in which he was counterbalanced by a very different presence: Belgian dancer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui in the masterful Zero Degrees (2005), French ballerina Sylvie Guillem in Sacred Monsters (2006) and French film actor Juliette Binoche in in-I (2008). Khan did not dance in his most recent piece Bahok (a collaboration with the National Ballet of China, 2008), and the choreography is consequently more tailored to the diverse talents of his international dancers. He attracts high-profile collaborators, most frequently Nitin Sawhney as composer, but also artists Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley, and writer Hanif Kureishi. 

One of Akram’s dance’s ‘Zero Degrees’ is performed by Akram himself and Sidi /larbi Cherkaoui. It is based on an edited text of Khan’s persona; and epic experience on a train journey in India detailing a border crossing. There is movement and pedestrian movement and gesture in the story telling of the text. It is performed as a duet using 2 male dancers, character roles of Khan and his cousin are assumed in part within this section of the dance (story part one-passports). Devices used in this section is Cherkaoui’s synchronisation system. Most of the section is performed in unison and a small element of mirroring and a bit of complementary action is used towards the end. 

 

Aural Setting - Khan and Cherkaoui speak in unison in story part one – “passports”, their tone of voice uses shifts from Khan’s calm recount, to the guards’ strong and authoritative questioning voice. As the emotional content increases, Khan talks with greater speed as he is feeling more out of control. 

Physical Setting – A minimal colour of blue/half blue light gives a stark feeling and lighting comes up to illuminate a grey box. Two white sculptures of human figures lay on the floor at either side of the stage, one upstage right and the second downstage left. There are four musicians sat behind the rear gauze wall, being lit from behind revealing their faces in a low but warm glow. Both dancers enter and take up a seated downstage centre, providing a clear focal point in the mass of grey space throughout the section. 

Both dancers wear the same style clothing, Thai fisherman style pants and a T-shirt in a different colour. Khan in a Khaki and brown, Cherkaoui in blue and grey. Khan is barefoot whilst Cherkaoui wears black jazz trainers. These costumes are worn throughout the whole piece. 

We are introduce to the beginning of the story, Khan and his cousin are travelling at the Bangladeshi/Indian border. It is hot and they are being subjected to a crowded and tense passport check. It is clear that the guards have a lot of power, in number and authority. Khan and his cousin (played by Cherkaoui) talk about the power associated with a passport and its significance to a person’s identity. We learn about their vulnerability when it’s removed from them. The unfamiliar territory makes Khan feel uncomfortable, and although reassured by his more knowledge cousin, they realise that however much they want to regain contact with their passports, they are trapped and powerless in the midst of rules. They accept their loss of control and helplessness, step aside and have to wait out a tense and uncomfortable situation.  

·         Varied tempo, rhythm and dynamic quality 

·         Change of body parts 

·         Retrograde 

·         Accumulation 

·         Fragmentation 

·         Varied tempo, rhythm and dynamic quality 

·         Change of body parts 

·         Retrograde 

·         Accumulation 

·         Fragmentation 

Q3. Are you using traditional choreographic methods? 
* I am using Rep from Akram's choreography in 'Kaash', 'Desh',  'Gnosis' and 'Zero Degrees' However, I also have the Idea of creating my own material, using his approach from my own story. 

Q4. What styles does my solo use? 
*Khan's style has a lot of rhythmic interest, as does my solo. The arms circle and slice around the head and torso, and bursts of action and sudden freezes. Khan has also often used speech and storytelling in his pieces and that is something that I am currently developing.
 
The text was spoken in a very fast pace to emphasis how the situation all happened very quickly and how everyone rushed in to help. It is all very flustered and high tempo to show the build up of emotions. 

Duration: 

People on road: 6-8

Freight: No freight necessary

Freight details: The set, which is the main feature of the production, will travel by freight in a container.

Description:

DESH ('homeland' in Bengali) is a full-length contemporary solo and most personal work to date by Akram Khan. At once intimate and epic, DESH draws multiple tales of land, nation, resistance and convergence into the body and voice of one man trying to find his balance in an unstable world.

Description:

In Gnosis, Akram Khan combines his classical Indian and contemporary dance roots. Khan revisits the classical motifs of two earlier solos and we follow him on a pathway of transformation, culminating in a shattering conclusion. Accompanying him on stage are an ensemble of exceptional musicians and guest artist Fang-Yi Sheu.

With this movement, taken from ‘Kaash’ I do it as fast as I can and then as sow as I can which links into stimulus well as I am varying up the different speeds and energy I can perform it. I also vary the amount of force I use in producing the movement. Doing it with a great deal of strength from beginning to end, then repeating it, with very little force, gently, weakly. 

This lesson we all had 10 minutes to teach the class about our choreographic process (studio performance of solo in workshop environment). 

Unfortunately because the computers were so slow I was unable to show some clips of the rep that I had been using so I talked about the movement I used in a more descriptive way by explaining Akram's style and how I used that to interpret him into my solo. 

I then went on to teach a phrase from my solo and focused on telling them the importance of the dynamic quality they needed to put in and where because Akram's work is very dynamic. 

I learnt a lot from teaching everyone and being able to watch them perform it. I realized what i needed to improve my solo and that is just more of a dynamic quality and the speed of my actions. 

Below is a video of everyone marking through my solo phrase.